


Kiss Goodbye

by chamilet



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:51:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamilet/pseuds/chamilet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amnesty fill for hc_bingo on LiveJournal/Dreamwidth. Prompt: septicemia/infected wounds</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Torchwood characters belong to RTD...unfortunately. I'm just borrowing them for a mo'.  
> Acknowledgments: Unbetaed.

Ianto cradled Jack in his arms. He was thankful that Jack had passed out again and hoped it gave him some respite from the pain he could see behind Jack's eyes when he was conscious. He tried to ignore the gaping wound that refused to close, and was in fact, getting bigger, on Jack’s side. The fact that Jack was not healing had not escaped either of their notice.

They had woken up here, in this cell, after following a rift alert to an abandoned warehouse. Their comms had been taken, as were Jack’s wrist strap, their belts, their guns and Ianto’s pocket knife and taser. After examining their prison thoroughly and not finding any way out, they had sat back and waited for the team to rescue them or their captors to confront them. The team knew their last known location and Tosh _would_ figure out where they were.

After several hours of sitting and talking, Ianto had noticed Jack continually scratching at his side. Upon closer inspection, Jack had a five centimeter gash, looking red and angry just under his ribcage. Jack had reassured him that it was nothing and was only itching because it was healing, but in another hour, Jack had been sweating and Ianto could feel the heat radiating off of his body.

Jack’s shirt had been wet and stained red and yellow and when Ianto carefully pulled it back, he saw that the gash had become an open wound with ragged edges and a foul smelling discharge. He had ripped Jack’s ruined shirt into strips and tried to clean and bind the wound, but without any clean water, his efforts had been a stopgap measure at best. Jack had tried to push his hands away and take care of it himself, but it was at an awkward angle and even Jack had to admit defeat.

After the sweating had come the chills, and Ianto had wrapped Jack up in his great coat and held him close as his body was wracked with tremors. When Jack had begun speaking to him in a language he didn’t understand and moaning in pain, Ianto had started to worry that Toshiko wasn’t going to be able to find them. _Ever_. Then Jack went slack and quiet and Ianto had thought for one terrified, hopeful moment that he had died. He’d felt for a pulse and found it to be slow, but steady.

Ianto had looked around their prison for anything he could use to kill Jack, to help him reset. Something sharp to slice an artery, quick and clean. He couldn’t believe he was even considering murdering his lover, but then Jack had woken up with a scream and retched over and over again until all he was vomiting up was bile and he looked up at Ianto with vacant eyes and Ianto couldn’t believe that he was considering _not_.

But there had been nothing. Their captors had removed anything on their persons that would have been able to end Jack’s misery and their cell was bare and stark. Jack had come back to himself and looked up at Ianto. The chills had started again, so Jack’s voice was shaky as he asked, “What’s happening to me? It’s not healing.”

Ianto had tried to reassure but when they looked in one another’s eyes, they couldn’t hide the truth. Whatever this was, it had been meant for Jack and he wasn’t going to heal. Jack had eventually passed out again and now here Ianto was, wondering what the implications were to a man that can’t die and heals miraculously when one of those two things changes.

Jack screamed back to consciousness and his hands scrabbled at his side. Ianto grabbed them and held them to his chest and whispered lies meant to comfort.

“Ianto, please,” Jack begged. He didn’t finish the plea, but Ianto knew the request.

“But what if,” Ianto couldn’t voice the rest, but Jack knew. He knew.

“I’ll reset, I will.” The conviction did not meet Jack’s eyes, but Ianto saw something else there. Hope amongst the sadness. Ianto did not think too hard on what was hope and what was sadness.

“I’ll have to smother you...or strangle you...” Ianto stared at the far wall so that Jack wouldn’t see the tears welling up in his eyes. “They took away anything that would have been quick and merciful.”

“Don’t.” Jack reached up and tilted Ianto’s face down towards him. A traitorous tear escaped Ianto’s eye and fell on Jack’s cheek. “Tosh will figure out where we are. The team will come for us and Owen will figure out what they did to me. I can hold out, don’t worry.”

Ianto smiled a small smile and nodded. Jack pulled him down for a kiss, chaste and comforting but then his grip on Ianto’s hair tightened and his breathing quickened and his mouth opened wide bringing forth a scream that Ianto knew would haunt his dreams until the day he died. Ianto watched in horror as the wound grew bigger and blacker before his eyes and when Jack’s screams had quieted to dull moans, Ianto placed his hand over Jack’s mouth and pinched his nostrils closed and looked with unseeing eyes as Jack instinctively struggled for breath and then, finally, went still.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gwen and Owen burst through the door of the cell, guns at the ready. Only after giving the all clear and announcing to Tosh triumphantly that they had found them did Gwen finally notice the stench of piss and shit and vomit...and death.

“Oh God, Owen.” Gwen holstered her gun and rushed to Owen’s side...and Ianto’s prone body. “Are we too late?”

Owen finished checking Ianto’s pulse. “Ianto’s extremely dehydrated, we need to get him back to the hub and hooked up to an IV.” He looked around the cell. “No water, nothing. They were both meant to die in here. Tosh,” he spoke into his comm, “you are literally a lifesaver.”

“They’re both alive then.” Gwen could hear the relief in Tosh’s voice.

“Nope,” Owen replied. “Jack’s stone cold at the moment, but Ianto is alive thanks to you. Can you get an IV set up to treat his dehydration? There’s no time to waste.”

“I’ll get right on it.” Tosh broke the connection.

“Owen?” Gwen touched Jack’s arm with alarm. “Jack’s never been this cold before...What’s going on?”

“I won’t know until we get them back. Help me get Ianto comfortable in the SUV and then we’ll come back for Jack.”

~~~~~~~~~

Once Ianto regains consciousness, he insists on sitting with Jack, even if it means rolling an IV pole around beside him. Owen cleans Jack’s wound and tests a sample of the bacteria he finds there, but all it confirms is that the bacteria is alien...and effective. Jack is still dead.

Gwen, Tosh and even Owen try to get Ianto to speak, but after his insistence that he be by Jack’s side, he hasn’t spoken another word. Owen manages to get him to eat - and sleep due to a mild sedative in his soup - but after Ianto wakes up, he refuses to eat anything more and only drinks water if Gwen or Tosh bring him an unopened bottle.

After a week, they move Jack’s body to the morgue and this time it’s Ianto keeping vigil. He’s back in his suit and tie, but still hasn’t spoken a word to anyone. Gwen watches him on the internal monitor, worrying at a hangnail with her teeth. Finally, decision made, she heads down to the morgue.

“Ianto, pet,” Gwen says quietly, “it’s time to say goodbye to Jack. To move on.”

Ianto doesn’t move and Gwen wonders if he even heard her. She reaches out and strokes his hand, is startled when he grabs it and holds it tight. “I killed him, you know,” he says quietly. “He kept begging me to and I wouldn’t, but he was in so much pain...and the screams...”

Gwen has to strain to hear Ianto’s words.

“I’ll never be able to forget the agony in his screams. Finally, I held my hand over his mouth until he stopped breathing. And now he won’t wake up.” Ianto looks up at Gwen with red-rimmed, dry eyes. “He was supposed to wake up.”

Gwen pulls Ianto to her and hugs him tightly, stroking his hair. “You had to do it, Ianto. None of us could have sat there and listened to Jack suffer and not done what you did. But Jack’s gone and we have to move on. So kiss him goodbye and come upstairs and we’ll have a strong cup of tea. We’ll just sit, all of us, and we’ll grieve and then tomorrow, we’ll figure out how we’re going to get on.”

Gwen leaves Ianto alone and walks slowly to the entrance of the morgue, looking back covertly to see that Ianto follows her instructions. Her heart skips a beat when Ianto bends down and places a kiss on Jack’s lips. She crosses her fingers for good measure.

When Jack sits bolt upright as Ianto is reaching for the zipper on the body bag, Gwen giggles with glee and has to restrain herself from running back and wrapping Jack and Ianto in her arms. Instead she makes her way up to the main area of the Hub to make sure Tosh and Owen haven’t left yet. There’s tea to be made and hugs to be dispensed.


End file.
